ANAHEIM, Calif. — There are differing schools of thought on the value of the strikeout in today’s game. The stigma once attached to hitters who strike out 100 times a season is largely gone. And there is some contention that, for pitchers, using one’s fielders to record outs and keep pitch counts down is the way to go.

And Yu Darvish, despite a couple of early missteps, was fully in charge Saturday afternoon as he struck out 11 Angels in seven innings for a 9-2 Texas victory at Angels Stadium.

“The first two or three innings it was fastballs, fastballs, fastballs,” said catcher Yorvit Torrealba, who returned to the lineup and produced a second-inning home run among three hits. “He was throwing it by hitters, so I stayed with it.”

Darvish mostly overpowered Angels who swung and missed and headed for the third-base dugout. His best pitch may have been a 94 mph pitch on the outside corner that froze Albert Pujols to end the fifth after the Angels had cut Texas’ lead to 7-2.

“Undoubtedly, Albert was looking for something else,” manager Ron Washington said. “Darvish got the best of him there.”

Staked to an early 6-0 lead after two innings, Darvish wasn’t challenged to be great Saturday. But he was pretty darned effective, anyway.

This was the sixth time in 18 starts in which Darvish has struck out at least 10 hitters. That puts him on a short list with pitchers whose careers may have been derailed for a variety of reasons. But when you are linked with the early work of Hideo Nomo, Dwight Gooden, Kerry Wood and Mark Prior, that’s, indeed, a good thing.

As for his American League contemporaries, Darvish’s average of 10.2 strikeouts per nine innings is second only to the Tigers’ Max Scherzer. C.J. Wilson is the only Ranger to throw 200 strikeouts in the last 20 years. Darvish is on pace to top Wilson’s 2011 total (206) and throw the most since Nolan Ryan in 1990 (232).

Power pitchers are important for reasons that go beyond home fans holding up strings of K’s in their honor. They can be especially important come playoff time.

In 43 Rangers playoff games, there have been four in which a pitcher fanned at least 10 batters.

Three came from Cliff Lee against Tampa Bay and the New York Yankees in 2010, and the other came from the Giants’ Tim Lincecum in Game 5 of that year’s World Series. In other words, all four pitchers who displayed dominance through strikeouts were winners.

“His fastball has a lot of movement, and when he keeps it in the strike zone, that opens up his other pitches,” Washington said. “Today was a good day for Darvish and a good day for the Texas Rangers.”

In some ways, Darvish can be viewed as the pitching equivalent of Josh Hamilton. Washington talked before Saturday’s game about Hamilton swinging at too many pitches outside the strike zone and Darvish throwing too many balls off the plate.

Both are the best at what they do when they don’t make the game difficult for themselves. Hamilton’s swing-and-miss struggles continued Saturday, while Darvish, with his 11th win, definitely took a step in the right direction.

Even on a good day, Darvish walked four Angels and increased his season total to 61. When the Rangers signed him for $107 million in the off-season, they were convinced he would not duplicate the problems of so many Japanese pitchers who have struggled here with walks (Boston’s Daisuke Matsuzaka is the prime example).

In the last five years in Japan, Darvish averaged more than 200 innings and never walked 50 batters. He has 61 walks — third in the AL — in just 116 innings. Clearly, he’s a work in progress here. But when a high walk total comes attached to this many 10-strikeout games, it’s worth finding out where this thing is headed with a 25-year-old pitcher.

“Beating a very good offensive team like the Angels, it gives me confidence,” Darvish said through his interpreter.

Ten-strikeout afternoons — or in this case 11 — have a nice way of doing that.

To post a comment, log into your chosen social network and then add your comment below. Your comments are subject to our Terms of Service and the privacy policy and terms of service of your social network. If you do not want to comment with a social network, please consider writing a letter to the editor.

About Tim Cowlishaw

Tim Cowlishaw has been The Dallas Morning News' lead sports columnist since July 1998. Prior to that he covered the Cowboys for six seasons and the Stars for three as a beat reporter. He also covered the Rangers as a backup beat writer and was the San Jose Mercury News' beat writer on the San Francisco Giants in the late 1980s.

Tim has been appearing regularly on ESPN"s "Around the Horn" since the show made its debut in November 2002. He also worked with ESPN as part of the network's "NASCAR Now" coverage in 2007-08.

Favorite Dallas restaurants: Park, Nick and Sam's, Kenichi.

Worst sports prediction: His first in college ... that Earl Campbell had no shot at the Heisman Trophy.

Best sports memories: Seeing the Dallas Stars hoist the Stanley Cup long after midnight in Buffalo, watching the Dallas Cowboys win the Super Bowl and Texas win the national title in perfect Rose Bowl settings.